The Rangers announced they’ve selected the contracts of infielder Ezequiel Duran and right-handers Ronny Henriquez and Ricky Vanasco. Additionally, righties Kyle Cody and Edwar Colina have cleared waivers and been assigned outright to Triple-A Round Rock.
Duran was among the most important pickups from the Yankees in this past summer’s Joey Gallo trade. Baseball America ranked him fifth in the Texas system midseason, praising his bat-to-ball skills and power. The 22-year-old struggled with the Rangers after a scorching start in the Yankees’ system, but he always seemed like a lock to be protected from the Rule 5 draft. The Dominican Republic native hit .267/.342/.486 over 471 plate appearances at High-A this past season. Duran hasn’t yet reached Double-A, so he’s likely to spend most or all of next season in the minors.
Henriquez and Vansaco appeared on the back half of BA’s midseason top 30 Rangers’ prospects. Henriquez split the 2021 campaign between High-A and Double-A, struggling with home runs but posting quality strikeout and walk numbers at the latter stop. Vansaco missed the year recovering from Tommy John surgery but is regarded as a potential mid-rotation starter.
Neither Cody nor Colina have the service time to reject an outright assignment, so both will remain in the organization as non-roster depth. Cody owns a 3.71 ERA/4.58 SIERA over 34 major league innings since the start of 2020. Colina has pitched in just one MLB game and was recently claimed off waivers from the Twins.
The crime was not leaving prospect OF Bubba Thompson off the list. The crime was letting his 40 man spot go to veteran OF Eli White, a quality defensive specialist who struggles to hit his weight. Thompson is already a plus defender with plus arm and plus speed, so that’s a head scratcher … While we are at it, DeMarcus Evans also kept a 40 spot, whose fastball topped out in the high 80s for much of the year.
I’ve really never understood why the Rangers have liked White so much. Sure he’s good defensively, but his minor league offensive numbers were never amazing and in the majors he hasn’t been able to do anything with the bat
teams put a high value on versatility, White plays everyehere. I don’t think this garuntees we lose Thompson either.
Can’t believe we are leaving Bubba Thompson unprotected. congrats to the O’s on getting their new CF
Thompson is really raw, strikes out a ton and has wickedly poor pitch recognition. He is exactly the kind of prospect the Rangers have gotten away from lately and was the last of the old school, toolsy draft picks. Go checkout the fangraphs writeups on him. He is interesting but I also wouldn’t really be shocked if he never made it past AA. I wanted him to succeed because he went to Mcgill HS in Alabama though haha.